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“We do highs and lows,” Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) tells her husband Hal (Rufus Sewell) during another State of Relationship conversation. She tries to say that she understands that their marriage, which has been at the forefront since the start of the Netflix series, will never be easy. He is the Vice President of the United States. She is the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Their conversations at night aren’t about who’s picking up the kids from school or what movie to rent before bed; they are about who is going to talk to the President (Allison Janney) about starting World War II and which international emissary (very attractive) they should trust with their lives.
“The fights are going to be spicy,” she says.
Kate wants it all, and so do we. It’s the spice that keeps “The Diplomat” humming, and the first three seasons might as well have been shot on Arrakis with its piquant sand. (Besides, those interior scenes could be shot anywhere, including another planet.) But back to Kate: She wants Hal so much that she’s willing to humble herself before him—to go after him, to prove her loyalty, to consider his needs instead of bypassing them to implement her own agenda.
On the one hand, the plan makes sense: Kate cheated on Hal and broke his heart. Now, she wants to fix it. But as healthy as that may be for their marriage, it’s a disaster for “The Diplomat.”
Debora Cahn’s political drama about political relationships – and the politics of relationships – thrives on the tension between Kate’s love for her work and her love for her husband. Each of them is high-stakes. Each hangs by a thread. And each one asks Kate to put herself on the line – to save her marriage and save the world.
So when she suddenly holds back from influencing her husband’s situation, the series loses its basic suspense. Seeing the Wylers working as a team might be a nice, comforting idea, but it bogs down the drama, shifting all the emphasis to political movements that are at once too close to reality to offer an effective escape and too far from reality to provide a cathartic scene. And it’s not spicy to see him against another power couple — even one played by Bradley Whitford and recent Emmy winner Allison Janney. It’s easy and one-sided, but Kate and Hal’s old brouhahas were so emotionally and politically part of the fun just from keeping up.
Speaking of easy, Season 4 kicks off with a rumored “shoot” that speaks to the fog the series seems to be running on (mild spoilers for Episode 1 ahead): President Grace Penn is fired! Her covert theft of a Russian super-nuke (at the end of season 3) is held out as surgeons dig a bullet out of Grace’s gut – not that we see the surgery, or even much of the shooting. That would be a bit too cautious for Cahn’s spoken word drama, and while the gunfight itself is well staged by director Alex Graves, what is technically an important moment (in the theological history of “The Diplomat,” as well as the entire season) feels like little more than a sign of the times, when an already hostile president receives additional weapons to support her aggressive moves.
The sea change widens the existing rift between the diplomat and her administration (Kate always thought President Penn was dangerous, if not fit for office), leading to many backroom discussions about how to handle an antagonistic, unreasonable CEO—and golly gee, what would that be like? “The Diplomat” has always existed in its own imaginary political bubble, which works well enough when its global crises are held to the same theatrical level as its romantic melodrama. But in Season 4, the balance is off, and the fictional president’s parallels to our war-starting, ally-betraying POTUS only make the first-time situation feel that much worse.
To be honest, I would like to live in a world with the problems President Penn caused rather than the ones President Trump did. I would be just as happy not to think about President Trump at all while watching what has always been, even at best, a stupid and stupid Netflix drama. But without the usual wedding drama, the political drama veers too close to a polite imitation of what’s really going on in Washington, which ruins any hope of suspending faith.
Cahn and co. try to replace the tension lost in Kate and Hal’s new commitment. President Penn and her husband Todd (Whitford) throw down now and again, as a man who already feels cheated has to sit and watch his wife go back to bitter militancy. On the other end of the spectrum, there are Stuart (Ato Essandoh) and Eidra (Ali Ahn), a young couple who are closer to a long-term commitment. Their romantic gestures are sweet, just as their tender problems prove, but the triptych relationship – the young couple, kinda naive, the middle-aged couple, middle-aged in crisis, and the older couple who is older – does not go deep enough to replace the juice of Kate and Hal’s turbulent connection. (They were fine!)
Our star couple still fights (and Russell, Sewell, and especially Whitford put on strong performances during their quarrel), but after, in the previous seasons, falling from the “highs” of a passionate marriage to an informal separation and divorce, the Wylers’ new alliance (formalized during the impromptu vow renewal in Episode 1) is too stable. He’s too much of an open book (remember when Hal was a wild card? that was fun!), and she’s too much of a glorified assistant (writing his speeches, delivering his messages, secretly holding up cards during Zoom calls – woof). Kate is not without a man, and it’s unsettling to see her spend the better part of a season pretending that she could be. And it just feels wrong.
The main strength of “the Diplomat” was in his main relationship. Season 4 undermines that power over three couples, one of whom is in the highest office in America. But a high title is no substitute for a rewarding job, just as an honorable union built on lies is no better than an honest partnership based on one unbreakable oath:
The fights must be spicy.
Grade: C
“The Diplomat” Season 4 premieres Thursday, October 15 on Netflix. All eight programs will be released simultaneously.
